Municipal Reporter
THE Municipality of Beitbridge (MoB) has lived up to its plans to rid the town of illegal structures and went on a demolition exercise in earnest Wednesday.
But some residents believe the demolitions were just window-dressing and may not affect real situations where illegal structures were erected in some circumstances by businessmen, public or municipality employees.
Some later used their stations to regularise certain structures built illegally.
“We are pulling down all illegal structures, yes we have started the exercise, we are targetting anything illegal,” said Town Clerk Loud Ramakgapola.
The action, he said, was in compliance with a recent Government directive.
Zimbabwe has expanded a nationwide restoration and clean-up program directing all its 92 local authorities to intensify enforcement against illegal structures, unapproved developments, and dilapidated buildings.
The key directives and enforcement were ordered for through the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works which instructed councils to issue abatement and enforcement orders for unsafe, unsanitary, or unauthorised structures.
Ramakgapola said a full-scale enforcement blitz running from October 14 to October 30, 2026, will be targeting illegal businesses, informal vending in undesignated areas, and unauthoried structures along major highways and border corridors.
In Beitbridge affected were residents owning various dozens of self-help unregistered markets and structures under powerlines in the Kwalu (SDP) suburb where several such settings exist.
These srructures were mostly built using bricks or metal sheets and roofing material and dotted across tge town.
Uniformed MoB police were from Wednesday captured on camera destroying the buildings. MoB police were accompanied by police.
Yesterday they raided the HaMbedzi Shopping complex and destroyed structures at a market built on an area reserved for the road.
Brief but harsh verbal engagements were held between the MoB and ZRP teams and owners of the illegal structures who offered just verbal but non physical resistence.
Ward 5 Councllor Granger Nyoni said the real illegal structures will never be touched and demonstrations will be on poor defenceless individuals.
“There are some real illegal structures in Beitbridge. What we see being destroyed are just those of people trying to earn an honest living from selling wares and groceries.But we have real illegal structures by businesspeople and those in public offices,” he said.
Another businessman who asked for anonymity said real illegal structures are at the complex behind the Engen Service Station where no service lanes have been left.
“If they are serious they must show us by going to destroy illegal structures and this complex. There are no service lanes left and if MoB is serious it must show its power here,” said the businessman.
Other illegally built structures existed in the banks of WaMlala River although there was talk that owners of these buildings may have used their stations to regularise structures built in the river banks.